


Keeping Warm In a Russian Winter

by starsandsupernovae



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22252006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandsupernovae/pseuds/starsandsupernovae
Summary: what issays on the tin. It's cold, there are two of them, one bed, and a whole lot of feelings.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanoff
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20
Collections: BuckyNat Secret Santa 2019





	Keeping Warm In a Russian Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookworm213](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm213/gifts).



“Any problems?” The officer barely looked up from his desk at the deadly team in front of him.

“No, sir. All went as planned. The target is eliminated.” The leader spoke up.

“Alright, I’ll read it in your report. Dismissed.” The officer turned a page. “Oh, and put that, away will you?”

The leader nodded, rolling his eyes once his back was turned and his superior couldn’t say. He had a name, the soldier knew, but they didn’t like him to know their names. Creepy, they called him. Like if a spirit called them by name. So, he followed his handler loyally, silently to the end of the hall. 

“You know where to go, I assume.” His handler said, looking somewhere into the distance. “Just get there yourself. Or just find somewhere to store yourself until you’re needed, I don’t care.”

He turned on his heel and walked away, boots clacking harshly on the steel floor.

The soldier remained standing a few minutes, not quite sure where to go from there. He didn’t know this compound as well, hadn’t been here long. But he could figure out where to go. He walked off determinedly as well, and no observer could have determined that he wasn’t quite sure where he was going to. 

The halls were mostly empty and the few people he encountered didn’t question him. Most bases he stayed in were essentially the same and he knew where he’d go in the last one. He would check if there was a space for him there before bothering an officer with a question. Questions were never appreciated.

Things seemed mostly the same until he reached the door that he assumed would lead into a room barely wide enough for the singular bed it held. Instead he opened it to a large room with a polished wooden floor, mirrors along the walls, one of which had a long metal bar running across it. It was completely out of place in the compound   
and he couldn’t help wondering if he’d stepped through a door to a whole other place, somewhere far away. 

He caught sight of himself in the mirrors and those thoughts disappeared as he stared at the cold dark eyes of the soldier staring back at him, metal arm glinting in the harsh lights overhead. His hair was unkempt and straggly, a still healing gash stood out, angry and red, from his cheek to jawline. He raised his right hand to his face, hardened, calloused fingers rough against his raw skin. He was so distracted he didn’t even notice the other person in the room until she spoke.

_______________________________

Natalia suppressed a shiver as she laced up her shoes. The building seemed to leach all the warmth from her body, the metal of structure sending nothing but icy chills in return. But a Bolshoi ballerina would still dance if the very floor was frozen and a bit of cold weather, even in a Russian winter wouldn’t stop her now. She began her stretches, mind fully engrossed in her body’s movements.

And then the door opened.

That wasn’t supposed to happen, she didn’t think any of the other red room girls were here right now. Who else would be entering their space, who would dare?

Whoever she was expecting, it definitely wasn’t him. Tall and menacing, the soldier stalked rather then walked into the room. He carried himself with a deadly aura of intimidation. She was sure he’d see her immediately but he seemed distracted, some of the aura fading as he stared at himself in the mirror, brushed some of his hair roughly from his face. She collected herself, stood up straight.

“Who are you?”

He spun around, caught off guard and for a moment she wished she had her Widows Bites on her, or a gun, a knife, anything to help her against the man now facing her. But in the next moment he stopped, confused. One of the soldiers presumably, who didn’t know about the program. And yet if he was one of those why would he have free reign to wander the compound, to wander in here. 

“I am…” he seemed uncertain for a moment what to answer, glancing back at the mirror.

“My name is James.” He said, somewhat more confidently and Natalia couldn’t help but be intrigued.

“James? American, are you?” she asked.

“Yeah, maybe.” He gave her a slight grin, endearing almost.

“I’m Natalia.” She wasn’t quite sure why she answered him, but there was something about him, a spark in his eyes perhaps, although she was loath to use such sentimental language. 

“Natasha! I’m honored.” He answered and she, the black widow, prima ballerina almost laughed. He was definitely endearing in the strangest of ways this strange American soldier.

“And what is an American doing here?” she asked. “Especially when I should be dancing.”

“Am I stopping you?” he asked and it was though he had lifted off a mask and something of a young, flirtatious man looked through. 

“I suppose not.” She shrugged and decided to continue. He would leave if she ignored him surely and she could get on with her routine. She had already lost time and she didn’t need to lose any more due to Americans who were more interesting than they should be. 

But he didn’t leave. She went through her motions and he watched her, as she stretched, as she went through the moves, as though every individual one, the routine moves she practiced over and over, independent of a larger dance, the slight adjustments she made, were beautiful. She had performed for an audience of course, had done so all over the world. But this was different. More intimate, just her and the American, now leaning against one of the mirrors and her, spinning across the polished wood in the room too big and yet not big enough for the two of them. 

“Don’t you have to be somewhere?” she surprised herself by asking. 

“Probably.” He answered, standing up straight. “I should go find my room.”

“Room?”

“You don’t happen to know where the general soldiers stay, do you?”

She gave him directions, short and quick, across the compound really. He must have gotten really lost. 

“Well, then I’ll have a space there, I guess.” He gave her another, small, strange smile. “Well you know where to find me. Lovely meeting you, Natasha.”

“Likewise, James.” She said with an answering fleeting grin of her own. 

It was only once he left that her mind started racing. Why had he really wandered in? Was it a mistake at all? A test of her loyalty to the red room and only to the red room? Why was an American here at all? A defector? But one just wandering around didn’t make sense. He was dangerous was the one conclusion she was able to draw. And Natalia didn’t need any more danger in her life. 

But he was something else as well. Something different, warm and welcoming despite how at odds the words initially seemed to be with him. And Natalia could sure as hell use some of that

The next time she saw him, she knew well who he was. She was warned, extensively. Taught how to handle him if anything went wrong. Prepared well before she arrived at the safe house, barely a shack constructed in the harsh snowy winter. 

She entered warily, feeling his presence as soon as she stepped through the door. Empty houses had a special feeling, one that seemed to invite her in to fill the vacuum. This one had an aura of danger. She ignored her instincts as she walked through to the bedroom where he was waiting, staring at the falling snow.

“The Winter Soldier.”

He turned to face her, still in full tactical gear, face concealed by goggles and a mask. No not a mask. A muzzle. He lifted it off to answer.

“Black Widow.” 

She dropped her bag onto the bed, disturbing the delicate layer of dust, particles flying. 

“James. The American.”

He finally lifted of f the goggles, revealing his eyes, and his face seemed to relax, small wrinkles appearing around them as his body released some of the tension, he held tight in his shoulders, firm stance and clenched fists. 

“Natalia. The dancer.”

Well he wasn’t wrong. 

“I suppose you found your way back then.”

“Yes, I’m sorry if I interrupted your practice.” 

His speech was stilted, almost oddly formal. She was technically acting as his handler for the week they were here and the fact hung in the air between them. She was used to being underestimated, used to being feared, but this assessment he seemed to conduct, she couldn’t quite figure out. 

She turned to check out the rest of the house, left him standing by the window.

_________________________________

The day was the kind of cold that knocks on all the doors, creeps at all the windows. The night was the cold that didn’t even bother, just seeped up through the floor, in through the walls, straight into his bones. James curled on the thin pile of blankets he had formed on the floor of the main room, trying to ignore a cold that demanded to be acknowledged. 

Shadows shifted in the doorway and he was up instantly, cold forgotten in the moment of adrenaline, and he faced the figure ready to fight.

“It’s just me.”

The black widow stood, looking just as deadly in her night clothes. Softer somehow though as she came over and regarded his little nest.

“You’ll freeze out here.” She stated.

They stood in silence for a moment while he realized she was waiting for him to answer, and she realized he was waiting for her to continue. They both did so at once

“I don’t mind.”

“You could come share the bed.”

Another moment of silence, to process. She shrugged and walked back.

“The offers still open. You will freeze out here.”

She was right. 

He lasted another few hours before deciding to accept her offer. It was reaching dangerous levels of cold and he wasn’t sure what choice he had.

He came in and she too woke up instantly, prepared at once to defend. He got in next to her silently. They lasted the night like that, lying silently together, sharing the warmth. 

The next two nights passed without event or sound. The days slunk by, trying to be unnoticeable, with nothing happening on either of them.   
It was only the next day, when they were supposed to carry out their mission, eliminate their target, that at last something happened.

That was the day it went wrong.

He was supposed to have been traveling alone, or as alone as a man of that status can travel. They took care of his guard with ease, made it to his inner room, heedless of his cries as he stalked forward, the Black Widow covering him from above.

He almost tripped on the slipper on the floor. A little girls slipper. 

“Widow?” 

He didn’t have to look back to know she had slipped away to search the rest of the house, didn’t react as he heard the screams when she found them. His job done, he went to find her, make sure the mission had been fulfilled in its entirety. No witnesses.

She was just closing the door behind her as he turned into the hall.

“It’s done.” She said and walked with purpose down the hallway past him, silently commanding him to follow. He did so, trying not to wonder at why they would leave a shattered window unfixed in the middle of winter, trying not think at how bullet proof windows could have been shattered in the first place. She had said it was done.  
They made their way back to the safe house in silence. She was stoic throughout, and neither of them thought to discuss what they had done, and he didn’t ask what had happened in the room. 

They both knew she wouldn’t answer.

But something was different, something was wrong. After nightfall she sat on the edge of the bed, staring out into the moonlight glinting off the snow.  
He chose not to speak, couldn’t find any of the right words. Didn’t think there were any. He sat down on the bed next to her instead. How long they stayed he couldn’t say.

“It’s getting colder.” She said, and it was so quiet for a moment he thought he had imagined it. 

“Yes.” He answered.

“There’s a little girl out there.” She wasn’t looking at him, just said the words as though they couldn’t condemn them both, as though she hadn’t just decided to trust him with something he wasn’t sure he could be trusted with.

“A little girl alone in the cold.”

He was thrown into turmoil. He knew what he should do, demand they go back, make sure the mission was complete, report her insubordination, be a good and proper soldier. It was the only option really. But it hadn’t been for her. And maybe it didn’t have to be.  
Surprising himself perhaps more then her, he reached an arm gently around her shoulders, almost shockingly small for how lethal those arms could be.

“She’ll make it.”

She looked at him then, eyes fixed on his with an intensity that burned.

“How could you know that?”

“You did.” The words spilled out of his mouth without thought, compelled by her gaze. “And you don’t have to be alone anymore.”


End file.
